What happens during a space walk?

The first person ever to complete a spacewalk was Russian astronaut Alexei Leonov, on 18 March 1965. It lasted 10 minutes.

Now spacewalks can last up to eight hours.

On a spacewalk, an astronuat will wear a space suit for protection. Inside the space suit, they have oxygen to breathe and a supply of water. The suits will be put on some hours before they leave the craft to allow the suits to be filled with oxygen and pressurised.

The world record for spacewalking is held by Russian astronaut Anatoly Solovyev. He has been on 16 spacewalks that add up to more than 82 hours in space.

Space walks can be carried out for various reasons, including to allow astronauts to carry out experiments on how space affects different thing, to allow them to work on the aircraft without leavnig space, and to repair things like satellites in space without coming back to Earth.